Baden-Powell’s oak is the nation’s favourite
IT was used by the founder of the Scouts as an example to youngsters of how big things are possible from modest beginnings.
Now, nearly 90 years after Robert BadenPowell championed the Gilwell Oak in Epping, Essex, it has been named the nation’s tree of the year.
Attracting 26 per cent of 7,000 votes cast by the public, it beat nine other contenders in the English tree of the year category, including Parliament Oak in Nottinghamshire, where King John is said to have held parliaments in the 13th century.
The Gilwell Oak then saw off competition from the finest trees in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to gain the national title. It will be Britain’s candidate for the European Tree of the Year contest next year.
Bear Grylls, the survival expert who serves as the Scout Association’s chief scout, said: ‘The Gilwell Oak… is the unbending symbol of scouting’s desire to change the world for the better.’
Although the Gilwell Oak’s image is intertwined with the Scouts’ wholesome reputation, it also has a darker past. Dick Turpin, the highwayman who terrorised 18th-century England, is said to have sheltered beneath its boughs as he prepared to ambush stagecoaches.